The Phillies play the Phillies tomorrow and I’m gonna be bummed out because a free (!) baseball game will be played at Bright House Field while I’m stuck in my office 15 miles away. I don’t really know what I’m gonna do when real spring training games start, either. I’ve been unemployed for the past two Spring Trainings, which allowed me to watch all the games live in their entirety. And it’s not like I care about the outcome of spring training games, but I want to watch baseball. Must watch baseball.

I should check that email I got about my MLB.tv subscription to see when the new version of At Bat will be available. Just thinking about MLB.tv and a new version of At Bat is making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside 🙂

So my big, big plans for the weekend were as follows: go to my parents’ house and go to a Phillies Spring Training game. I came up to my parents’ house on Friday and today we went to the game. Like last year, I didn’t want to talk about the game ahead of time for fear that it would get rained out. And this year’s forecast called for storms from, like, 1-5 PM so I was doubly anxious. But they got the whole game in without any weather-related stoppage, so yay! It was overcast for pretty much the entire time we were at Bright House Field and even rained once or twice but I still managed to get a sunburn on both arms. Aren’t I lucky?

The weather was ominous when we got to the parkDarn close to an Opening Day lineup

The exciting part about this year’s game was that Chase Utley and Ryan Howard were actually in the starting lineup! And neither of them was scratched!

A surprising number of names I recognize made the trip north with the Red Sox

My mom noticed that Victorino was playing for the Red Sox before I did. Of course, she was just thinking about how he was my sister-in-law’s favorite player.

Of course I took a picture of the Wawa sign in right field

Shane coming over to say “hi” (not really)

The Phillies lost, but I’m not particularly bummed about it. I got to see major league ballplayers play baseball in person. And I was much closer to the field than I could ever hope to be at Citizens Bank Park. And, oh yeah, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard went back-to-back in the eighth inning! (That doesn’t suck.)

Today was a good day. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that, y’know?

The worst thing about spending all of yesterday in bed was that when I went to bed on Friday I was full of plans for Saturday. Actual, working on my house kind of plans. Nothing too drastic or labor-intensive, mind you, because this is me we’re talking about. But still. They were things I’d thought about doing forever and I was finally motivated to do them on Saturday. But then Saturday happened and my plans went on hold. I was afraid that yesterday drained my motivation, but no; I followed through with my Saturday plans today. Well, I didn’t get as much done as I would’ve liked, but that was due to circumstances beyond my control. On the whole, I’m very satisfied with what I accomplished today.

Even more astonishing than my unusual burst of motivation is the fact that I got stuff done even after I spent three hours watching baseball and not doing much of anything else. It was baseball to celebrate, too. Not because the Phillies won (even though they did), but because my Apple TV was finally aware that the World Series was over and it was time to start showing Spring Training games. I don’t know what possessed me to check my Apple TV today, but I’m glad I did. I don’t know for sure that this was the first day games showed up on Apple TV, but I think it was.

Technically, this happened yesterday, but I didn’t see it until today. City and Colour posted a link on Facebook to a very brief teaser for the new record. Which means there will be a new City and Colour record this year. Yay! Don’t know when it’s coming out because it only says “soon,” but that’s enough for now.

And in other band news, I’m just over here reading too much into Brand New randomly popping up on my Instagram and Facebook feeds today. It was really innocuous stuff, too. They added a picture to Instagram and updated their Facebook cover photo (but not to anything Deja Entendu related). (Side note: this new Instagram on the Web thing is kinda awesome.) But I’m so conditioned to not see Brand New on social media that when they pop up (on two sites, no less) I have to think that it’s significant. And judging by the comments on Instagram, I’m not the only one. If Brand New were any less awesome their we’re not going to tell you anything schtick would be annoying, but they’re amazing and I adore them. And I kinda love them all the more because they’re so “mysterious.” I know that Jesse will be in the studio with Kevin Devine & the Goddamn Band in April (thank you, Kevin Devine interview), but there’s still a lot of 2013 after April. I admit it’s a stretch, but that’s not stopping me from getting my hopes up.

Four rather different things, but they all made today good. And that’s pretty awesome.

The Phillies played an honest-to-God baseball game today, you guys. And I know because I watched it. Even after it got a bit ridiculous and the substitutions made me say “wait, who’s that guy and where did he come from?” or “that guy is still on the team?” I kept watching. After all, I’ve been waiting for this forever. And it really was the only reason I got out of bed, so I thought I should make the most of it. I really wish I knew why my Apple TV didn’t know about any of today’s games, but it’s not the end of the world because my iPad knew about them.

I decided I should write this now, while I still have some post-baseball energy. And since I’m starting to fade I think that was a very good decision on my part 🙂

Now it’s time to take some more Tylenol and watch some movies that I don’t mind falling asleep during. My life sure is exciting.

My dad emailed me a scan of our Spring Training 2013 tickets. Aww yeah!! I’m so stoked for that. 2013 is off to a great start. (Also, I am hoping, hoping, hoping that I will have to fly down here from Philly to go to the game. Luckily, it’s a Sunday game :))

In other news, shoutout to the guy at the UPS Store who told me the band on my t-shirt is awesome. I was like, duh, Something Corporate is awesome.

In fact, shoutout to the UPS Store. I walked in and was immediately helped. I didn’t have to stand in a line for 10 damn minutes like I’d had to at the post office. I am most definitely going to use UPS to ship my personal cheerleader’s Christmas present.

It wasn’t getting drunk. It wasn’t even drinking. It was watching baseball, baby!

My parents got me Phillies Spring Training tickets for Christmas and today was the day I finally got to use them. I was intentionally not talking about it here because I didn’t want to jinx it. My parents and I have only gotten tickets for one Spring Training game a year since ’09 and the past two years something happened that denied me the ability to watch the game. The game in ’10 was cancelled due to the weather and last year I was working in March. (Last year’s crappy temp job just happened to be five minutes from Bright House Field, though, so I watched one whole inning on my lunch break.)

Today was gorgeous, though. Blue skies and temperatures in the low 80s. Although we could’ve done with a bit more of a breeze.

We bought lunch (cheesesteaks – on Amoroso rolls – yes, that’s important) en route to our seats. Our seats were pretty good – in right field just past first base. But since we got off to kind of a late start since I’m a sleeping-in slacker (whoops) both teams were done with batting practice by the time we sat down. Since there was nothing going on on the field when I finished eating I took a picture of the lineup to post to Instagram and Facebook (and here, teehee).

I don't know this woman, but I bet she had her picture taken a lot today.

I brought my camera with me as well since it has a better zoom, but most of the pictures ended up being kind of blurry (as you will see).

Jimmy Rollins just before he homeredRyne Sandberg coached first base today, I have no idea whyI was stoked that one of my favorite players, Carlos Ruiz, startedAnother highlight was the Phillie Phanatic (he doesn't come to every Spring Training game, y'know)

After a couple of innings I had the same epiphany that I had about concerts a decade ago: I’d rather experience the event fully than through a viewfinder. So I put the camera away. (I swear this was in no way motivated by my inability to take a halfway-decent picture.) And, really, I was having so much fun that it would’ve been silly to stress about taking pictures. The only real downside to the whole day was the group of drunk Canadians behind us who got kinda obnoxious when the Blue Jays took the lead. But the Phils walked it off in the tenth so, y’know, that was awesome.

We Wonned!

Yep, today was a good day. The Phillies won. I ate nothing but Philly foods: cheesesteaks and soft pretzels at the game, hoagies (also on Amoroso rolls) and Herr’s potato chips for dinner. And I got a new green Phillies hat.